Ebert vs. Barker on "Are Games Art?"
Roger Ebert, the notorious film critic who went on record many moons ago as stating that "video games are not art," has written an article countering arguments by famed horror novelist Clive Barker to the contrary.

To his credit, Ebert at least amends his statement by saying, "games cannot be high art."

Whatever the heck that is supposed to mean. I checked Wikipedia, and it seems that high art is pretty much restricted to "traditional" art forms, only recently allowing cinema into the old boys club.

Personally, I think he does have a point about interactivity, but I don't think that in any way prevents games from being art. Sharing the artistic effort with the audience definitely makes for a different experience from traditional media. But face it --- how many games REALLY put that much of the story in the player's control, anyway? I think games suffer from being overly linear in their presentation as it is, borrowing too much from traditional forms of artistic expression.

And how much cinema and literature are really "high art," anyway? Everybody likes to invoke Shakespeare, but that was four centuries ago! How about Stephen Kings' novels and the Harry Potter books - are those "high art?" I don't know, but I suspect that those will be artifacts of this generation's culture that will endure much, much longer than the words of pretentious critics of the day.

Anyway, you can check out Ebert's defense here:

Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker


(Vaguely) related nonsensical revelations:
* Games As Art: Media's Double Standard
* Do Games Matter?
* How Do I Get Past the Harpies?
* Game Design: Fixing Interactive Storytelling

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Labels: Politics

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:00 AM (Permalink)